Mr. Clark:

A reform which we will introduce will be the annual publication of five-year spending forecasts and five-year revenue forecasts of the Government of Canada. What is almost unbelievable and almost impossible for me to accept is that in the United States, in the United Kingdom and in Canada there are five-year revenue projections and five-year spending projections, that in the United States they are published, that in the United Kingdom they are published, but that in Canada under the Trudeau government they are kept secret.

Why are they kept secret? Why should parliament not know what public servants know when they set budget policy? Why should the people of Canada not know about the implications, five years down the line, of budget policy which is being

November 20, 1978

The Budget-Mr. Clark

brought in now? Why should there be so much secrecy? Why should Canadians be kept in the dark about the basis of national economic policy? There is no reason. This government, which has grown so old in office, is so captive to the old habit of secrecy that it simply will not break it.

I give to the people of Canada and to this House the commitment that after the next election we as a new government will break that bad habit and let the sun shine in on the five-year forecasts and projections on which national economic policy is based.

I think all of us in this parliament are concerned about how much, if anything, must be kept secret and how much can be made public. We must take a hard look at taking away part of the veil which now covers our budget-making process. We know that the way the United States deals with the problem of holding a potential special advantage because of special information is by making sure that all information is available to everybody. Here we keep all information from everybody. 1 think we must take a hard look at whether the system in the United States does not have more to recommend it than the system which has led us to so much economic difficulty here.

With regard to those technical changes in budgetary policy which can confer no positive or negative advantage or disadvantage, we in this party think that those matters should be discussed in public and that they should be moved out, from the preparation of this budget onward, into the open so that there can be that kind of consideration.

Unfortunately, this secrecy which has cast a shadow and a cloak over budgetary policy is pervasive in this government. In the budget documents there is a brief, seemingly innocuous but dangerous reference to some $300 million which the government of Canada is going to make available to those companies which are adversely affected by the negotiations at the Geneva round of GATT. The government knows what went on at GATT; parliament does not, the companies affected do not. The government does know, and the government is of the view that at least $300 million worth of damage was done to the Canadian public interest and to the interests of Canadian companies by what was negotiated away at GATT.

Part of the reason that that causes so much concern is that the industries whose lives and future are being affected by these negotiations at GATT have consistently been kept outside. Once again, other nations with economies far more complex than ours have found ways to ensure that industries whose lives are affected by tariff negotiations have a means of participating in those negotiations. That is not the case here.

Mr. Martin:

They have had a lot of input.

Mr. Clark:

The parliamentary secretary correctly says that they have had a lot of input, but they have had input up to a point, and then public servants-admittedly good people- have had theirs. The industries involved have been sent away, but there is no role in Canadian delegations, as there is in the delegations of other countries, for representatives of some of those industry groups to participate directly in the negotiations. One consequence is that not only do people live with the

certainty that the Government of Canada has concluded that there has been at least $300 million worth of damage done to the Canadian economy by the GATT negotiations, but also there is the suspicion that if somebody who knew more about an industry which was bargained away had been present at the table, then the injury done to that Canadian industry would not have occurred. That is the tragedy, and we must change our procedures to prevent that.

The basic weakness of this budget and, indeed, the basic weakness of this government is that it is standing pat. It is dealing with the past. It has no sense of the future of this country. In ten years the government has wasted and crippled some of the great building assets of Canada.

This budget promises us a deeper deficit and stagnation as usual. There is no excitement in this budget, and there is no excitement in this tired old government. There is no excitement about the potenital of this country, and this budget certainly offers no encouragement.

It is quite interesting to look at the threads which run through the language of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance. They talk about the problems Canada faces and about this being a difficult world. They talk about all the obstacles we face and about all the bad things which are in the atmosphere. The fact is if they would get out of their cocoons and visited this country, if they would stop apologizing about what they had done and began to look at what we can do as a people, they would realize that this is not a country beset by problems, but a country beset by opportunities and possibilities.

Hear, hear!

Mr. Clark:

Nobody pretends that this is an easy country to govern, it never has been, but there is no question at all that Canada can be governed, that it can grow as an economy. What is necessary is to have a Government of Canada that is prepared to trust the people of Canada more than this government does. There has to be a determination to encourage the instinct to build which is part of Canadian life, whether it is evident in a company like Great Lakes Air-which wanted to buy the airline which the government bought-in a company like Alberta Gas Trunk Line-which moved in and ensured Canadian ownership in a far preferable way to having Petro-Can move in-or, indeed, whether it is evident in the aspirations of countless Canadians across the country who simply want to own, buy or build their own homes and want this government, through mortgage interest deductibility and other means, to help them. These people want the Government of Canada to adopt that kind of policy because it indicates that it is prepared to back up with its policy those Canadians who want to go out and build for themselves.

Mr. Martin:

Talk about the cost.

Mr. Clark:

I shall talk about the cost, and I will talk about the consequences as well.

November 20, 1978

Mr. Martin:

In real figures.

Mr. Clark:

I shall talk about the cost in real figures too. I am sure the parliamentary secretary is aware, and I know he is doing his job as a parliamentary secretary and as a partisan, that the two industries which would be most dramatically affected by my policy would be the house building industry, which is almost 100 per cent Canadian-owned. We would not only be helping young, older and middle aged Canadians who want to build homes, we would also be stimulating a highly productive part of the Canadian economy. We would be creating jobs for Canadians and growth for Canada, which in turn would provide revenue for the Government of Canada and the governments of the provinces. It would provide the kind of stimulus which is singularly absent in the budget brought down by this government.

Hear, hear!

Mr. Clark:

All members are proud of the constituencies they come from and I am sure they think they cannot be matched by any other constituency in the country. I had the opportunity to be home in my riding on the weekend, to meet some of the people who work and live in the constituency of Rocky Mountain which stretches along the western mountains and foothills of Alberta. These are people who work harder than we do in this House of Commons, people who go down in coal mines every day, who work outside in winter, and who run farm operations which require them to keep the schedule that calves keep when they are being born, a schedule much less predictable than you, sir, can enforce in this House of Commons. They are hard working Canadians who have their counterparts in every constituency in this country.

One of my privileges as national leader is to have the opportunity to travel this country, to go to Newfoundland and visit the little community of Trepassey and see people who go out every day in violent seas to fish for food, and to travel across this country and see people who want to build.

Many of these people came to this country because they knew that there was opportunity to build, and that is the nature of this country. What we need is a national policy, including an economic policy, that is in keeping with the building nature of this country, rather than in conflict. For a decade we have had a government which has not trusted the people of Canada, and it is evident again in the budget. Instead of allowing private entrepreneurs to acquire businesses which could be best operated in the private sector, the government moves in and buys. Instead of helping young Canadians and other Canadians who want to go out and build their homes, the government says no. Instead, this government goes out to younger Canadians and Canadians on low incomes and says: "You are too rich. How do we, those of us sitting in Outremont, know you are too rich? Because you want to own a home." That is what the Prime Minister said, and that is why he opposed our policy.

Oh, oh!

The Budget-Mr. D. J. Johnston

Mr. Clark:

I will not get into that matter, Mr. Speaker, because it is a subject for another debate, but it certainly indicates an attitude toward Canadians. There is here, in this party, a determination to establish a government which will introduce policies which will encourage the building instinct of ordinary Canadians. It will be a refreshing change and we look forward to introducing such policies as soon as we can after the next election.

Hear, hear!

Mr. Donald J. Johnston (Westmount):

These are my first remarks in this House, Mr. Speaker. Indeed, it is a great honour and privilege for a number of reasons. First of all, simply being an elected representative of the Canadian people is a great honour, as is representing the riding of Westmount, which, as hon. members know, will soon be redesignated as Saint Henri-Westmount. It is an unexpected pleasure to have the opportunity to listen to and follow the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark), and accordingly I would like to depart from some of the general comments which I intended to make at the outset about my riding-which I understand are traditional and to which I will come back in due course-to comment briefly upon some of the statements made by the Leader of the Opposition with regard to the budget.

I have sometimes been a critic of budgets in the past, but I must say that I am proud, as a humble backbencher, to be associated, however indirectly, with the budget handed down last week.

Hear, hear!

Mr. Johnston (Westmount):

I have to assume that the Leader of the Opposition, because he really did not address himself to any of the substantive issues contained in the budget, must be in agreement, by and large, with the proposals contained in it.

I learned some things in the course of my campaign. I am a neophyte and a debutante with no political experience, and, in the course of my campaign, my Conservative adversary, who was a very able adversary, let it be known to me that he had been at a candidate's school. This was my first criticism of my own party, because I did not have the benefit of candidate school. It appeared to me during the course of the campaign and after listening to a number of members of the opposition, including its leader, that candidate school specializes in a particular form of humour, a good deal of gloom and doom, and the preaching of a lot of platitudes.

The comments which I intend to make to this House today will be less humorous, with less doom and gloom, and I hope that there will not be too many platitudes. However, I would like to point out that the Leader of the Opposition did make one statement which I share wholeheartedly with him, and that is, that this is not a country beset by problems, but a country of unlimited opportunity. I was delighted to hear the Leader of the Opposition make that statement, because it has long been my impression during the course of the last several years and, in my election campaign that too much gloom and

November 20, 1978

The Budget-Mr. D. J. Johnston

doom is being preached in this country, not only by the opposition but from other quarters as well.

I see this country today as a country of unlimited potential and energy, with enormous coal reserves, untapped riches in the tar sands, hydroelectric power which could double within the next 15 years, and with one of the great forest reserves of the world, unmatched by any nation except, as I understand it, Russia and Brazil. We are endowed with one of the great freshwater reservoirs, minerals, and twice as much farmland per capita as the United States, although we are not quite as productive. Canada is a country of unlimited opportunity. That is why I say, that I am delighted to see those opportunities married to responsible financial policies, such as those contained in the budget brought down by the government.

It is clear to even the most cynical observer that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Chretien), in his budget rejected seductive political proposals in favour of long-term economic growth which the country requires.

Turning for a moment to my own riding, I should like to point out that indeed it is not only an honour and privilege to represent Westmount, but also a challenge. I am called upon to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of the Hon. "Bud" Drury, whose distinguished career as a soldier, public servant and politician is well known to members on both sides of the House.

Hear, hear!

Mr. Johnston (Westmount):

I was delighted to hear the hon. Leader of the Opposition pay homage to Mr. Drury. Even in his retirement from the House, he has gone on to accept several difficult mandates, and still serves the Canadian people.

In its wisdom, the riding of Westmount selected a Liberal by an overwhelming majority in the recent by-elections. Yet, I feel that in the minds of many Canadians, the Westmount riding conjures up the image of one of the two solitudes about which Hugh MacLennan wrote so many years ago: the solitude of the affluent English in the province of Quebec. The riding of Westmount is not such a bastion or fortress of the English-speaking population of the province of Quebec. In fact, Westmount today is symbolic of the Canada of the future, the pluralistic society which brings together so many of the wonderful differences present in Canada, such as racial, religious, economic and social. All those differences are present in that great riding. The riding comprises one of the most important influential Jewish communities in Canada, as well as one of the most important business communities and universities, combining all that in a riding which is predominantly English and very substantially bilingual.

From time to time the premier of Quebec, Mr. Rene Levesque, has made reference to the metaphor used by Sir Winston Churchill of two scorpions in a bottle being representative of the relationship between the French and the English. I can assure Your Honour and all members of the

House, that if that metaphor is applicable anywhere is Canada-and I personally do not think it is-certainly it is not applicable in my riding or in the city of Montreal.

Hear, hear!